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When is violence against a person justified? Usually the legal boundary is immediate threat. So if a politician is advocating for you to be put into camps, then that seems like a reasonable starting point. But then you have to consider 'reasonable fear of immediate threat' and things get much murkier. Is it reasonable to fear that pro-mass migration politicians intend to destroy your community with foreigners?
In America it's still only the crazies/extremely disaffected that are actually willing to go out and kill for politics, usually. People will cheer on the killer but almost none of these people would actually be willing to do something similar.
In a war, do you need to show that each and every soldier you neutralize presented an imminent danger to you personally? Is there a legitimate concept of a movement or an ideology as a whole presenting a grave danger and justifying violence against any of its adherents as self defense?
To mix my metaphors, War is a switch, not a dial. If you have (justly) declared war, then the restrictions on lethal force are much looser. If you haven't, then the original standards hold. You don't get to judge them as 70% enemies and therefore only deserving of 30% of the protections of civil society.
Is it? Is the US at war with Afghanistan? Has it ever been?
The post-911 AUMF was (although it didn’t use the words, and probably should have done) a declaration of war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Does this mean the US is still at war with them?
For the Taliban, no. Donald Trump surrendered in 2020 and Biden rather notoriously botched the implementation of the surrender agreement in 2021.
To the extent that Al-Qaeda still exists, the US is still at war with them.
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Depends on whether its a peer conflict, really. If you are vastly more powerful than your opponent, you can afford to treat it as a dial. See US-Afghanistan, US-Iran, Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine. That last looks a little more switchy by now, and I think that's because Urkaine turned out to be more resilient and Russia to be less capable than anticipated.
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Okay. So the question stands: at what point can one segment of society justify a war against another? The answer clearly isn't "never". It's also pretty clearly not "defend against individuals on a case by case basis and reserve violence for imminent personal threats"
At some point, the totality of circumstances justify, even demand, a war, yes?
Were the troubles justified? That seems to be the closest analogue for what is getting envisioned.
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but you repeat yourself: The first sentence is against "don't ever declare war", while the second is against "act like you haven't declared war".
Of course, just civil wars happen.
The criteria you posted upthread (competent authority, chance of success, just cause, last resort) is as good as any other, but I don't think the specifics are that important. If a rational group of responsible, representative leaders decides that war is the best option, then I don't think that any checklist could fully predict my reaction.
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